HC Deb 23 March 2000 vol 346 cc1094-6
2. Mrs. Betty Williams (Conwy)

If he will make a statement on the funding of further education. [114597]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Malcolm Wicks)

Further education is central to the Government's economic strategy given the importance of skills, and is central to our social purpose in terms of fairness. Only last November, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced an increase of £365 million for further education in 2001–02—the biggest ever investment in further education.

Mrs. Williams

I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he agree that young people from poor homes need extra money in order to stay at college? Will he tell the House how much money will be spent this year to expand the education maintenance allowance to support the campaign to encourage young people to stay in education?

Mr. Wicks

I am pleased to confirm that £53 million will be spent this year to expand education maintenance allowances because of our determination to ensure that young people stay in education. That, together with our other policies such as the connection strategy to bring about a youth support service, the new deal and modern apprenticeships, show our determination to ensure that young people across the country are encouraged to be well motivated, well educated and well trained.

Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood)

The Minister said that the Government's policy on the funding of further education is "central to our social purpose in terms of fairness." How can it possibly be fair for English students not to receive free tuition whereas their Scottish and European Union counterparts in Scottish universities will do so? Is not the Government's policy central to their purpose of keeping together their creaking coalition in Scotland, and nothing to do with fairness or academic good sense, since people will go to the university with cheap student fees rather than one which best suits their specialism?

Mr. Wicks

The original question was about further education, which is sometimes confused with higher education. The number of young people going to university is increasing year by year and we have a fair funding system, which means that quality and quantity march together. Under the previous Conservative Government, quality suffered in universities and funding per student declined. We are maintaining standards—indeed, we are pushing up standards—while enabling more of our young people to go to university. That has to be the right approach.

Mr. Tom Clarke (Coatbridge and Chryston)

Is my hon. Friend aware that, on the subject of further education, to which the question relates, many people believe that resources for special needs students for subjects such as horticulture, hairdressing and personal hygiene are important, but so is access to core subjects such as computer literacy? Will my hon. Friend encourage all those concerned to make access available to those courses, and that includes physical access to the buildings involved.

Mr. Wicks

The new legislation is clear about our determination to enable those with special needs and physical difficulties to have full access to our education sector, and that is absolutely right. Our further education colleges do a splendid job in enabling a number of young people and older people with difficulties to gain access to first-class education. I should like to take this opportunity to applaud the work in our college system to enable that fairness agenda to be developed.

Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry)

The Minister's written answers are sometimes, perhaps unintentionally, revealing. In the light of that, will he explain two things? First, during the last three years of the Conservative Government, as his written answers reveal, enrolments in further education rose from 3 million to over 4 million, but in the first three years of a Labour Government they have stagnated at best, and, in fact, slightly declined. Given that, how on earth will he fulfil his stated target of enrolling an extra 700,000 students in further education within the next two years?

Secondly, will he explain how that process is to be helped by the blatantly missed targets on individual learning accounts? Those were due to appear nationally in April this year, but the Government have so far failed even to establish the public-private partnership to service and administer them?

Mr. Wicks

As with higher education, we are concerned not just to increase the numbers entering further education colleges, but to improve standards and quality. Under the Conservative Government, there was a scandal around franchising involving many colleges. In one case, to boost numbers, a college claimed to be educating students who were, in fact, being educated in Scotland. The Conservatives should hang their heads in shame about the franchising scandal. They created the mess and we have cleared it up. We are determined to boost student numbers in further education while maintaining and improving standards. That is our agenda and we are sticking to it.